Tele from scratch - A Construction Diary!

[gtech]

I'm impressed by the results you get using the tools you use.

Nice work again.

Gilles

[djinn1973]

Fantastic work, impressive results, thank you for sharing this with us. I am having a lot of fun watching your progress

[tuuur]

All I can say is: wow. You are some tenacious guy. Hats off.

And the guitar looks very good up till now!!!

[Nick JD]

Maestro

[Buckocaster51]

Shazam!

André, you are sure to go high in the amateur draft!

I am totally impressed!



So is THIS guy!

[telex]

Way to go André!

I'm impressed too. You have done well. I am looking forward to see this progress.

[Grin'n'pick]

Wow, I really admire your skills, this thread is magnificent.

[japasul]

Wow, thanks a lot for all the compliments!

Im really flattered, specially coming from guys like Buckocaster and Jwells, who have been major influences!

Since I dont have all the proper tools to make the guitar, i dialed up my tolerances... The important thing is to end up with a guitar that is playable, if not good-looking....


Thanks a lot, again!
My classes are beginning to take up most of my time, so the building process will slow down, but ill keep you posted!

Cheers
André Ripoll

[japasul]

I decided to go for it and make my own mother of pearl inlay circles, and not by using a round bit for the drill press!!!

I got some cheap square pieces of MoP and taped some "templates" i printed out, that had the appropriate diameter.




Then i cut off most of the shape, using my dremels cut-off wheel.



With the dots roughly shaped, i perfected (well, tried to) the shape using my grinding bit of the dremel.



And here is a test fit on a scrap piece of RW:




Good enough for me!

Cheers
André Ripoll

[jwells393]

Wow ........ making your own fretboard markers ............. pretty ambitious but I think there's an easier way.

......

[japasul]

But Mother of Pearl would probably shatter if i used your method!!!

I could have used plastic that resembles MOP, but I wanted to experiment with the actual thing, and 10 small MoP squares cost me about 2 bucks, way cheaper than a sheet of plastic (which they dont sell in less than 1 square meter!)


Cheers
André

[Buckocaster51]

Nice work.

The difficulty of making circles is the reason that I switched over to diamonds and snowflakes when I was inlaying acoustics.

[jwells393]

Making certain things that are readily available from a supplier seems a bit absurd to me. Round MOP fret markers are just such an item. Will you be making your own side markers too?

[RichardM]

Originally Posted by jwells393

Making certain things that are readily available from a supplier seems a bit absurd to me. Round MOP fret markers are just such an item. Will you be making your own side markers too?

So..........

By your logic we should all be using pre-made parts for our Tele builds?

Better still, buy it already built, straight from Fender!


Why do people make things that they could buy ready-made?

Because they can.

[RichardM]

André,

My dad used to polish stones by attaching them to a piece of dowel with sealing wax.

You could try the same with the MOP.
Spin the dowel with the MOP attached in a hand drill, and hold the spinning MOP up to a running griding wheel.

[Nick JD]

I've been watering my garden with a dirty yet perfumed mixture of maple syrup, rosewater and ashes and iron filings. No telecasters have sprouted yet, but I'm optimistic.

[japasul]

Hee hee

Jwells, if I could buy the dot markers, believe me I would.

It just isn't possible here. Well, it is, but they would come at absurd prices. YES! Way too much, at about 1 US dollar per marker!

I am just not willing to pay this much for them (10 bucks over all). Adding the cost of the rest of the parts, a guitar would come at too high a price for someone who lives in an underdeveloped country like me.

This all may sound a bit exagerated, but is not. On top of it all we have almost 100% import taxes that applies to any industrialized product!

I dont mean to bring political or economical aspects to the discussion, but they are some of the reasons that led me to DIY! Even being part of the 5% richest portion of our society (and still considered middle-class!), we have very little access to many industrialized products.

Even so, this is my hobby. I believe that making something yourself makes you appreciate the cost of it more. And I have lots of fun with it, which I think its the most important part!

Richard makes a valid point there by adding that, to some extent, every part of the guitar is readily available!


Either way, coming back down to the way I made my dot markers, I believe my method was far from the best and too much time consuming, but I will perfect my methods gradually as I build more guitars!


As for the side markers, I plann on using a wood or plastic rod. They dont have to be shiny looking, theyll be only 2mm in diameter!


Cheers, and thank you all for reading!
André Ripoll

[n3rrd]

Hey there, Andre. It goes without saying that you're doing a great job, thus far. I'm sure the finished product will be incredible.

As I've never done any custom work (yet) myself, I'm not entirely sure how thick the stuff you are using is. To speed it up, you could try nailing a small finishing nail or something similar into a piece of wood, snipping it really short and filing the left over to a point.

Then you could heat it up a bit and put the bottom side of the MOP against it like a pivot point, then slowly turn it against the abrasive wheel? Maybe that would work, maybe it won't. Could be worth a try?

Originally Posted by japasul

Hee hee

Jwells, if I could buy the dot markers, believe me I would.

It just isn't possible here. Well, it is, but they would come at absurd prices. YES! Way too much, at about 1 US dollar per marker!

I am just not willing to pay this much for them (10 bucks over all). Adding the cost of the rest of the parts, a guitar would come at too high a price for someone who lives in an underdeveloped country like me.

This all may sound a bit exagerated, but is not. On top of it all we have almost 100% import taxes that applies to any industrialized product!

I dont mean to bring political or economical aspects to the discussion, but they are some of the reasons that led me to DIY! Even being part of the 5% richest portion of our society (and still considered middle-class!), we have very little access to many industrialized products.

Even so, this is my hobby. I believe that making something yourself makes you appreciate the cost of it more. And I have lots of fun with it, which I think its the most important part!

Richard makes a valid point there by adding that, to some extent, every part of the guitar is readily available!


Either way, coming back down to the way I made my dot markers, I believe my method was far from the best and too much time consuming, but I will perfect my methods gradually as I build more guitars!


As for the side markers, I plann on using a wood or plastic rod. They dont have to be shiny looking, theyll be only 2mm in diameter!


Cheers, and thank you all for reading!
André Ripoll

[jwells393]

Originally Posted by RichardM

So..........

By your logic we should all be using pre-made parts for our Tele builds?

Better still, buy it already built, straight from Fender!


Why do people make things that they could buy ready-made?

Because they can.

Richard ............... I do a little building myself. I build the parts that it makes sense for me to build. For me it's the wooden parts. I may fabricate somthing if it's not available. Fret dots are available.

When I built my Snakehead Esquire Prototype I made my fret dots because the size I needed wasn't available. I guess I just see that André's method leaves a lot to be desired considering he's saving only $10.

It would be interesting to see what a good hard whack with a hammer and hole punch would do to that mother of pearl.

[japasul]

Originally Posted by jwells393

Richard ............... I do a little building myself. I build the parts that it makes sense for me to build. For me it's the wooden parts. I may fabricate somthing if it's not available. Fret dots are available.

It would be interesting to see what a good hard whack with a hammer and hole punch would do to that mother of pearl.

I find it hard to describe what you do as little building!!!

My point here is that it shouldnt always make sense!

For my first guitar, I had no wood working experience, no electric guitar experience (and no electric guitar!) and would have to spend a lot on tools and stuff, which add up to quite a bit more than a ready begginers guitar - it made no sense to try and build one myself at that point in time! But i had a lot of fun doing it and learned a lot (and ended up with a wonderful sounding and playing guitar, thanks to the help of many people).

But I believe that if I had an easier access to markers, I would buy them and not make them myself...


It is just so much fun though!!!

Cheers
André Ripoll

[BadHorsie]

André is dong a great job with the materials and tools he has. (This is just my opinion nothing more) I think it is his project and if he wants to make the fret markers to save some money so be it. I totally think that doing a project of this magnitude the way you want is a major part of it. I am sure André will look down at this guitar when he is finished with a great sense of pride, knowing that he made a large percent of this project from scratch and by hand. André my hat is off to you keep doing what you are doing.

[Gareth John]

I'm very impressed by your work and methods so far, this is a fantastic thread, and it looks like your guitar is turning out great, probably a whole lot better than I could do even if I bought a premade neck and body, I'm sure i'd find a way to bodge that up. keep up the good work. Can't wait to see the finished work.

[Tedecaster]

Nice job Andre & thanks for the neck drawing ! (other thread)

As for your fret markers, you could;

-rough them out
-glue them to the end of the proper size dowel (a layer of newspaper in between would make them easier to remove later)
-chuck the dowel in your drill & sand the edges flush with the dowel using a block
-cut them loose

Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

[japasul]

Well, you all gave me some very good ideas on how this can be done, still in a very simple way!

Unfortunately, this will have to be remebered for a next time, since my inlays are in the neck already!

Thank you very much for the input!


I didnt post these before due to lack of time, but here they go!

I mixed a paste of RW shavings, wood glue and some dark brown paint. This helped covering some imperfections on the inlay (which in the end were not so many, considering how this was done!).



Here they are, inserted and with lots of that mix squeezing out.




And after sanding down:





I am actually VERY pleased with the results! the MoP was itself of not so high a quality, but i wanted to experiment since this was my first time doing any kind of inlay, and it made no sense spending a lot on quality MoP.

As for now, I have made a 12" radius sanding block, to get the radiused fretboard. My thanks on this go to Jwells, who sent me a link to a very interesting project!

Again, I could have bought this block from Stew Mac, but it makes no sense to me to pay about 20 bucks for a piece of wood to come all the way from the States and still be charged import taxes on it.

This block cost me almost nothing to make (just one afternoon of work), and I could always buy a readily made one later if it didn't turn out good, which was not the case! Pics to come!

Cheers, and thanks for reading!
André Ripoll

[Grin'n'pick]

It just gets better and better. Amazing job, I am in awe of what you're doing, every little bit from scratch, incredible (especially for someone like me who can't even make a sandwich!). Those inlays look tremendous.

[hekawi]

Originally Posted by BadHorsie

André is dong a great job with the materials and tools he has. (This is just my opinion nothing more) I think it is his project and if he wants to make the fret markers to save some money so be it. I totally think that doing a project of this magnitude the way you want is a major part of it. I am sure André will look down at this guitar when he is finished with a great sense of pride, knowing that he made a large percent of this project from scratch and by hand. André my hat is off to you keep doing what you are doing.

+1!
the title of this thread is building a tele from scratch. and he's doing it! i'm amazed at every new step he's taken. for someone (me) who can barely make scrambled eggs from scratch, this project is very impressive indeed.

[Dep]

I just wonder at what this young man could do in a fully equiped wood shop.

Andre....you are doing a heck of a job, my friend. Looking forward to seeing the end result.

Dep

[jwells393]

Well ............... I guess I should eat a little crow. When I saw how you were making the fret markers I really didn't expect very good results. It looks like the neck is turning out great.

Good Job .......... .

[japasul]

Thank you all!

Jack, some of the markers are not exactly round... (of course the picture shows the best ones!)

I am happy with it and it matches the level i was hoping for when i started this project.

For the next neck, I would most certainly do this some other way (if I dont buy the markers! ) - The method I used is far from perfect. So I guess your point was also valid, when you criticized my method. And believe me, I took the criticism and WILL do this differently next time!

I still take these projects as learning exercises, and not the "production of a great guitar".



Thank you all for reading!
André Ripoll

[RichardM]

Originally Posted by jwells393

Richard ............... I do a little building myself. ......

I know that. Hence the smillies.

[hekawi]

Andre,
you haven't posted in over a week, so i'm just checking progress on the build. how's it going?

[japasul]

i havent worked much on the guitar, over the last week!

My classes are few but are managing to take up most of my time for the week...

I did get some things done though, and was just building up enough pics to post again.

The neck is almost done! im already doing the fret-work. I had lots of problems with this and with the drilling of the tuner holes, but all is fine now.

I hope i can upload some pics soon!

Thanks for the interest!
Cheers
André

[Telarkaster]

This thread, along with the Buckocaster builds and the Sparklecaster threads is the reason I joined: to tell you how impressed I am and to beg you to keep it up! You have quite the fan club here! Way to go!

[japasul]

Hey guys....

School has been very time-demanding these last weeks, but I found some little time to do some work and now to post it!

This has all been done over the last week and a half...





I needed a radius block for radiusing the fretoard, so i made myself one!

Thanks to Jack Wells for the link! http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/radius.htm

The link explains how it can be done, by mounting the router to a radius-jig, so I'm just gonna post the pictures of my jig...






The block took 4 hours to make (including making the jig, routing and sanding the block) and 30 minutes to use... Oh, well, i couldnt have done it without it.

Here goes the radiused fboard. It is great! 12"! It feels good to the hand, so I think I will like it like this!!!





I needed to get the fret slots to depth, so I made this tool:



Basically a sandwich of mdf, screwed together. The height of the saw can be adjusted and then the screws are tightened. It works great!



Cheers, and thanks for reading!

André Ripoll

[ehawley]

You are one resourceful guy!! I am VERY impressed Andre! The neck looks like it came out great! The fret slot depth thingy is very cool. Great idea. Now that you have the fretboard radius block maker you can make various boards! Great. I'm a watchin'
Cheers
ED

[japasul]

I just had some exams and presentations last week, so school won't be that much time consumig for a while...

AND! We had our own Independence Day here on the 7th September, so I had a long weekend to rest!

I plan to have this build done by the next two weeks! So here we go, no time to waste!




I had just radiused the fretboard, and was ready to cut the slots to depth, so i cut all the fretwire to length first...



...and made sure they fit, after slotting! Looks good to me!


I then taped the whole neck around the fret wire.






This is because im glueing my frets using an epoxy adhesive, and i dont want it to run to the wood.



Cheers
André Ripoll

[japasul]

This is how it looked:




Seems like a waste of tape....

Then I removed the frets...




By the way, as you can see, Ive already drilled the tuner-holes. For that, i just used a printed paper template and no drill press at all, which i REALLY do not recommend... The holes came out a little crooked and I had a little tear out because my bit wasnt brand new (but its still new... well...). Luckily, the washers are big enough to cover these errors, but i still wish they had come out right...

Using two part epoxy glue and a rubber hammer, I got my frets into place!




And after removing the tape, I couldnt wait to check with a straight edge...



YES! That made me very happy and proud! The frets are almost totally even, and will require just a bit of leveling, just to make sure!


More to come!

Cheers
André Ripoll

[j_hunter_hkr]

I love how totally different this thread is to ehawley's but you're both going for the same final result! Fascinating stuff, as is ehawley's thread.

Amazing work.

[japasul]

Thanks, j_hunter!

Heres how the neck looked like after the frets were glued into place:





I made myself a little jig to properly trim the fretwire. Its basically a metal file with two wooden edges...







As you can see, the metal file forms a 90 degree angle with one of the wooden edges, and a 40 degree angle with the other one.

[japasul]

This jig is used first to trim the sides of the fretwire and get them aligned to the neck wood, running the straight wooden edge on top of the frets.

Do this...




... and get this:




Then, using the angled wooden edge of the jig, i get the fretwire leveled.






After doing this, the neck still needs some sanding across the sides to get off the sharp metal edges formed on the fretwire...

Thanks for reading!

Cheers
André Ripoll